


Prince Charming and the Pencil

by geekprincess26



Series: Blue Pencils [2]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Breakups, Drama, F/M, Friendship/Love, School Dances
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-12
Updated: 2017-02-12
Packaged: 2018-09-23 18:12:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9670271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geekprincess26/pseuds/geekprincess26
Summary: Harry Hardyng was charming, popular, and the perfect boyfriend until he dumped Sansa Stark...right before Casterly Rock Preparatory School's Valentine's Day ball.  Jon Snow is neither charming nor popular, but he may be the perfect dance partner for Sansa, and the dance may be just the opportunity Sansa needs to set things right between them.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Day 10 of Jon x Sansa Fanfiction’s 15 Days of Valentine’s challenge.

Harry Hardyng was late.

 

Sansa swept into the upstairs bathroom she shared with Arya for the fifth time in the past ten minutes to check herself in the mirror. She had readied herself for Casterly Rock Preparatory High School’s senior class’s Valentine’s Day ball in record time, having spent until nearly five o’clock decorating the school’s community hall with the other students on the ball’s planning committee. Her makeup was done flawlessly; the blush-colored gown she had so painstakingly sewn for herself fit her like a glove; wonder of wonders, her fresh blush-and-gold manicure had not been scratched as she and the other students had rushed to put the final touches on the community room; her gold jewelry glittered beautifully; and she had finished preparing for the ball a full five minutes before Harry was supposed to pick her up. Harry was never late, and did not like it when she ran behind.

 

Sansa’s phone buzzed, and she lost no time swiping the screen open.

 

_Brandon and I r on the way._

 

Sansa hung her head in disappointment. She had certainly hoped it had been Harry, texting her to tell her he was here, but it was only Jeyne Poole, reporting in to the text group Margaery Tyrell had set up for the planning committee members. They and their dates had agreed to meet at the school half an hour before the ball officially began in order to take photos and iron out last-minute details. Sansa was not particularly looking forward to that half-hour. She was tired from spending the entire day decorating and still smarting from a spat she’d had earlier that afternoon with Jeyne, who had taken it upon herself to point out how little Sansa understood about decorating for major school events. After all, Jeyne had snidely reminded her, this was the first event that school year at which Sansa had served on the planning committee, whereas she, Margaery, and Beth Cassel were all on their fourth. “But naturally, you were busy hanging with the weird computer geeks doing stuff for community theater,” she’d continued, and it had been all Sansa could do not to dump a bag of confetti over Jeyne’s head. Instead, she’d retorted that Jeyne clearly understood little about volunteering at the community theater or about computer geeks. She had first started doing artwork for the local community theater a year prior at the request of only one computer geek, Jon Snow, and Jon was not weird, simply a bit shy. But after she saw how much work it took with both computers and other pieces of machinery she didn’t understand just to put on a morning rehearsal, let alone a full evening production, Sansa had also realized just how talented Jon and his buddies on the production crew were. She had also seen how much help the theater’s owners needed and had gladly agreed to help in the art department, even though it had meant she couldn’t put as much time into planning school activities as she had anticipated.  

 

Sansa sighed as another message popped up on her phone screen. _Great. Sansa, what about you and Harry?_

 

That message was from Margaery, to whom out of her three best friends Sansa was still the closest. Even Margaery, however, had not hung around Sansa as much during their senior year as she had during their previous years at Casterly Rock. Sansa supposed it was partly because they both had boyfriends now and partly because Sansa had spent so much of the past several months working hard on the portfolio she had included with each of her college applications. Sansa had always known that if she wanted to get into a good art therapy program, she would need an excellent portfolio, and Sansa Stark never did anything halfway. Still, Sansa felt bad about not having time to serve on the other three planning committees with her friends, and it had hurt during the prior weeks as they had all prepared for the ball together to see that they had a better rapport with each other than any of them did with her.

 

Sansa sighed again. Once Harry showed up and got her to the school, she would no doubt find that everybody’s tempers had improved with food and showers, and they could all relax (a bit) and enjoy the fruits of their labor. And she and Harry would dance and put the fight from earlier this week behind them, the fight in which Harry Hardyng, a straight-A-earning trumpet player who had been accepted to four different Ivy League schools, had accused Sansa Stark of being a snob. The accusation was ridiculous, of course, but that had not stopped Sansa from crying for an hour afterward. She had tried her best to be a supportive girlfriend. Despite her work on her art portfolio, she had spent as much time with Harry as she could; and, far from turning up her nose at Harry’s hobbies, she had attended every one of his cross-country meets and band concerts since they had begun dating. And neither quitting band the prior year nor changing her planned college major from music therapy to art therapy had had anything to do with Sansa’s thinking she was too good for music. Harry would no doubt understand that after taking a few days to cool off; he always did after one of their disagreements, even if he was never much of a one for apologies.

 

So when Sansa’s phone vibrated and produced a text message from Harry saying _Sorry, Sansa,_ she almost dropped it. He must just be leaving his house, she thought; Harry never texted while driving.

 

_No problem,_ she texted him back. _We’ll still get there in time for pics._

Three dots blinked on the left side of her phone screen for several moments. Sansa inspected herself in the mirror one last time, then dashed down the stairs. Her phone buzzed just as one glittering heel met the floor at the bottom of the staircase.

 

_No, I meant sorry I’m not going w you,_ the screen informed her. Sansa sat down so suddenly that she began to slide down the remaining stairs on her backside. She clutched the railing to stop herself with her right hand while frantically swiping at the phone screen with her left.

 

_Are you OK? Did you get sick?_ she typed frantically.

 

_No, just not going,_ replied the blue text bubble that popped up on the left side of the screen almost immediately. Sansa stared at the three gray dots that appeared under it a moment later, uncomprehending.

 

_Better get it over with now. Would be fake if we went 2gether,_ said the next bubble. _You can go by yourself if u want. 2 different for each other. You don’t want what I want. Done._

 

The bubbles stopped coming. Sansa kept staring at the screen, willing there to be more, willing the words to go away, willing Harry to take them back. But there was not, and they did not, and Harry did not.

 

Tears welled in Sansa’s eyes. She used the railing to push herself upright as fast as she could, so the head rush would help her blink them away. She did not want Harry Hardyng to have made her cry twice in one week, especially when he did it the second time by dumping her right before the Valentine’s Day ball.

 

Sansa pinched the bridge of her nose. If she could just think clearly enough to type for a moment, she might be able to distract herself long enough to keep the tears at bay, at least for the moment. So she swiped the screen of her phone and punched the cursor furiously.

 

_And what don’t I want?_ she typed. She let out a sigh of relief when she saw the gray dots reappear on the left-hand side of her screen. As long as she could engage Harry in conversation, she could focus now, even if it would only upset her all the more later on.

 

_Music, like real fine art stuff, not kids stuff @ com theater. Like music at all. We don’t have same friends. You like ur sister’s and J Snow and his friends better lately._

Sansa pinched the bridge of her nose again. If she knew Harry at all, he had been planning this since they’d had their fight earlier that week, during the time she’d thought he’d been cooling off. That hurt almost as much as the fact that Harry clearly thought she wasn’t good enough for him. And he had had the nerve to call _her_ a snob.

 

_I like doing art 4 “kids stuff @ com theater.”_ she typed back in a rush, suddenly more furious for the moment than she was hurt. _It’s respectable –volunteer & good 4 my portfolio @ good schools. And I only missed 1 concert u wanted to take me to 2 hang out w my own sister & friends & u didn’t have a problem with me switching 2 art therapy which is also respectable._ There. Her grammar was more atrocious than usual, but at least Harry knew he wasn’t the only one who could pride himself on doing “respectable” activities.

 

_Concert meant a lot 2 me_ , Harry replied. _U wanted 2 hang out w bunch of computer nerds more than me. & switching majors isn’t stable, what next, fashion design & sewing?_

 

The heat that had heretofore been confined to Sansa’s face began migrating down her chest and arms. _If I did it would still be respectable,_ she replied. _Sorry if liking 2 make my own clothes isn’t good enough 4 u. If I’m not good enough 4u you could have said face to face earlier nt left me stranded. That’s not respectable either. Goodbye._

 

Sansa threw her phone into her purse, buried her face in her hands, and began to shake. She should have known better than to try to distract herself from crying, she thought as the tears began running down her arms.

 

The sound of the back door shutting six feet away startled Sansa bolt upright. Just as her eyes recognized the familiar form of Jon Snow in front of her, the connecting door to the recreation room swung open, and Arya strode into the room. Both of them stared with concern at Sansa’s tear-streaked face.

 

“What’s the matter? Jerkface late?” asked Arya, who always called Harry “Jerkface” and other less polite names after Sansa had a fight with him.

 

“He’s not coming,” Sansa spat out. “Happy?”

 

“Whoa.” Jon took a few tentative steps toward Sansa at the exact same time Arya screeched, “What? Why in the hell not? He’s still ‘punishing’ you for disagreeing with him, what, last week already?”

 

“Arya.” Jon shot a warning look at the younger girl before turning to Sansa. “Sansa, what happened?”

 

“He broke up with me,” sniffed Sansa. She began crying again and pawed madly through her purse for a tissue.

 

“Right before the ball? What a cowardly, jerk-faced piece of shit – ” Arya began.

 

“Arya.” This time Jon’s voice came from almost directly above her. Sansa looked up, startled, to see him holding out one of the handkerchiefs she’d made for him back in their middle school years. Sansa’s face reddened again. She’d made him half a dozen handkerchiefs back when she’d still been his secret admirer and made a point of giving him things she knew he’d like. One of Jon’s odd habits was carrying around a handkerchief – mainly, Sansa supposed, to rub the sweat from his face that was automatically generated by his doing metallurgy in the applied arts lab or running to connect a thousand cords under the harsh lights of the school and community theaters. She still thought it a strange habit, but now, as she added her tears to the mix on a square of black with music notes embroidered around the edges, Sansa found herself wholeheartedly approving of it.

 

“Thank you,” she managed to mumble, too embarrassed to look at either Jon or her sister. No doubt her makeup was running in ugly streaks all over her face.

 

Sansa’s phone buzzed again. _Oh, no._ It had to be Margaery, furious that Sansa and presumably Harry were late, and –

 

“Oh, flying heck!” she exclaimed, remembering what else she and Harry were expected to do at the ball. She tried to stand up but tripped over the hem of her dress, and she would have fallen back onto the stairs but for Jon catching her and helping her all the way up.

 

“Thanks,” Sansa muttered as Jon stepped back. Arya rolled her eyes.

 

“‘Flying heck?’ Sansa, really. Rickon’s not exactly around – probably off playing foosball with Dad – ”

 

Sansa, who had long since grown accustomed to using slang expressions at home so as to avoid incurring her mother’s ire for using stronger language around her younger brother, waved her sister off.

 

“Stuff it, Arya, you’re not the one who’s supposed to dance with her stupid date to open the ball and got dumped by him, and now I can’t – ” Her phone buzzed again, and she picked up her purse from the ground and began rummaging through it again.

 

“Oh. Right. Sorry.” Arya turned to Jon. “Hey, wait, aren’t you supposed to be there too? Running all the music and everything?”

 

Jon scratched the back of his head. “Right, I just came back to get my USB drive with some of my files I need on it. I left it here with Bran by accident.” He was interrupted by a sob from Sansa, who could find her phone nowhere in her purse. Jon bent to retrieve it from one of the stairs and held it out to her.

 

“Thanks,” Sansa choked out, rubbing her eyes furiously. “Sorry, I – oh, you probably want this back, and – ” She held out the handkerchief to Jon, who waved it away.

 

“It’s OK,” he said. “I do have some other ones at home.”

 

Sansa managed a weak smile. She had indeed made Jon several other handkerchiefs before they had entered ninth grade and been assigned to different homerooms, by which time Jon had discovered his passion for metallurgy and begun helping out at the community theater, and the other students had stopped making quite so much fun of him, and Sansa had figured he did not need his secret admirer quite so much any more.

 

“Bran!” Arya’s belted exclamation brought Sansa sharply back to the present. She flushed when she realized she was still holding Jon’s handkerchief out to him.

 

“Sansa,” he was saying, “you OK?”

 

Sansa nodded at the same time Jon hung his head. “No, sorry, that was stupid,” he said. She shook her head, but before she could think of what to say, Jon’s own head snapped back up. His face had gone pink, but he looked her straight in the eye.

 

“I – I – you can say no,” he said, “but I can take you to the ball if – if you want, and you can find a guy to dance with, or – or – I could dance with you for the first one – I mean, I’m not good at it and I’d have to help with the sound later, but you’d – you wouldn’t be left alone that way, and I could take you home after the first dance, or any time later, if you wanted to go, or if you wanted to go out to McDonald’s or wherever for a snack between dances if you just want a break. Sam knows how to do that stuff as well as I do, so I can leave and come back, no problem. I can even change into my suit, if – if you want me to dance.”

 

Sansa merely stared at Jon. She knew he was no Harry when it came to dancing, but she had no Harry or anybody else to dance with, and right now having somebody, whatever his skill level, was infinitely better than having no one to dance with at all – or even having Harry to dance with, at this point. She and Jon would still get a lot of strange looks and whispers from her friends and everyone else, but then Jon was used to both the whispers and the looks, and Sansa was sure to get them anyway after everyone found out Harry had dumped her. At least she would get neither from Jon.

 

“If you don’t want to, that’s fine, Sansa.” Jon’s voice had lowered, and Sansa thought she could detect a hint of disappointment. She shook her head.

 

“No, it’s – ” she began, but was interrupted when Arya, Bran, and Catelyn Stark all entered the room at once.

 

“Sansa, honey, Harry’s not here yet? What happened, sweetheart?” Catelyn wrapped an arm around her daughter’s shoulders while Bran handed Jon’s USB drive to him.

 

Sansa smiled wanly at her mother. “Harry’s not coming, Mom. He – he broke up with me, but Jon’s going to take me to the ball and – and do the first dance with me.”

 

A devilish grin spread across Arya’s face. Catelyn, whose back was turned to her, wiped a tear off of her elder daughter’s cheek and drew her in for a hug.

 

“Oh, I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” she murmured. “Are you sure you’re up for going? You don’t have to go, you know, if you’d rather not, even if you don’t want to talk about it right now.”

 

Sansa blew her nose into the handkerchief and gave both her mother and Jon a wobbly smile. “No, Mom, it’s OK,” she said. “Jon says he’ll take me home after the first dance if I want to go.” She gave Jon a wobbly smile, and he returned a steady one that reached and filled his dark brown eyes.

 

Catelyn gave her daughter a searching look, then nodded and turned to Jon. “Thank you very much, Jon,” she said. “I’m sure you know that Sansa is expected to be home before midnight.”

 

Jon flushed again and nodded. “You’re welcome, Mrs. Stark,” he replied. “We’ll be back before then.”

 

Fifteen minutes later Sansa and Jon, she with her makeup reapplied and he sporting the dusty suit and tie he had hastily changed into while waiting for her to tidy up, arrived at school for the pre-ball photo session. Sansa spent the entire ride typing her apologies along with a brief explanation to the text group, but Jeyne Poole still shot her a dirty look when she arrived. Fortunately, just before Sansa began posing with the others for photos, she caught Jon frantically trying to brush some of the dust bunnies off of his suit with, of all things, the blue pencil he had previously had tucked behind his ear. The smile she produced for the cameras then was real. So was the smile she gave Jon when he offered her his arm to escort her onto the dance floor.

 

“I really, really appreciate it, Jon,” she said. “I hope I didn’t make you late for Sam and the others; you can tell them it’s my fault their best sound person wasn’t there on time.”

 

“You made Sam late?” said Jon, his expression perfectly deadpan. Sansa giggled in spite of herself.

 

“No,” she replied. “The best sound person there tucks blue pencils behind his ear.”

 

Jon reddened and immediately reached behind his ear to pull out the pencil resting there, but Sansa shook her head.

 

“I didn’t mean you should take it out,” she said. “It’s enough that you’re offering to dance with me. I don’t want to make you do it without the pencil, after all.” She smiled warmly at him, and Jon smiled back, although his face was still red.

 

“You’re not making me dance with you; I offered to do it,” he pointed out. “Besides, I’m the one who should apologize in advance for stepping on your feet by accident.”

 

Sansa opened her mouth to reply, but was interrupted by Margaery Tyrell, who swept over with Joffrey next to where Sansa and Jon were standing.

 

“One minute, Sansa,” she said. Sansa did not miss the eyebrow the other girl raised pointedly at the pencil perched behind Jon’s ear.

 

Joffrey, however, upstaged his girlfriend with a snort. “Made hanging with the computer weirdos full-time, huh, Stark?” he said. Sansa straightened herself up to her full height.

 

“Yes, Baratheon, I have,” she replied. “I find it a step up from my previous company. I rather admire computer weirdos, in fact.”

 

Both Margaery’s shocked look and Joffrey’s reply were cut off by the arrival of Mr. Arryn, who was Casterly Rock’s music director and also the teacher in charge of the ball. A few moments later, he and his wife swept onto the dance floor, and the planning committee members followed with their dates.

 

True to his word, Jon spent much of the first dance stumbling and then apologizing to Sansa, but she kept waving away his apologies and redirected him to the correct steps. Teaching him proved a welcome diversion for them both from the strange looks they were getting from the other students, especially Jeyne and Joffrey – so welcome, in fact, that they continued for two more dances before Jon once again apologized, this time for having to take off backstage to help his friends with the sound.

 

Sansa shook her head. “No, don’t be sorry,” she said. “And – and thank you, Jon. I really, really appreciate it a lot.”

 

Jon smiled. “I really appreciate you trying to help me not look like total computer weirdo out there,” he said. Sansa rolled her eyes.

 

“You’re not a weirdo,” she replied. “You never were.” She took a deep breath. “A weirdo wouldn’t have offered to bring me here when I – I didn’t have anyone else to take me, and – and a weirdo definitely wouldn’t have tackled Theon Greyjoy when he was picking on Bran and me on the playground.” She felt her face flush red. “Especially since you took the blame for me shoving Theon over it.”

 

Jon stared at her, clearly bemused. “Oh,” he finally said. “That was a long time ago. I’m not still mad at you for it or anything. Besides, Theon deserved it.”

 

Sansa nodded. “I know,” she said. “I’m still sorry, though.”

 

Jon shook his head. “It’s – it’s all right, Sansa. Don’t worry about it,” he said, and after a moment he held out his right hand. “No hard feelings? Friends, or – or at least fellow weirdos?” He gave her the lopsided grin she’d first seen when she had given him the box of pencils and the note apologizing for the detention Mr. Cassel had given him back in sixth grade for defending her and Bran in front of Theon. Sansa gave him her hand at once and smiled back.

 

“Friends _and_ fellow weirdos,” she said. “Deal.”


End file.
